


All Fall Down

by suitesamba



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, Baby Watson, First Kiss, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-26
Updated: 2014-01-26
Packaged: 2018-01-10 03:44:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1154466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suitesamba/pseuds/suitesamba
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mary leaves weeks before the baby is due, and it falls to Sherlock to begin to fit the pieces of John’s life back together.</p><p>Told in 3 x 3 format: Three sections (John/Sherlock/John & Sherlock) of three parts each.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All Fall Down

**Author's Note:**

> Another go at a "fix-it" fic, and while it's not tied up neatly with a ribbon, there's definitely hope here.

John: I

He wakes up alone on a Saturday morning. He begins the day with the calendar.

Sherlock has been gone six weeks.

Mary is due in five.

He counts forward and backward, measuring both up and down. 

It’s half eight, and Mary is out for her morning walk, so John showers, settles on the sofa with his laptop and a cup of tea.

At nine fifteen, he pulls back the curtains and looks out the window.

At nine thirty, she’s not back. He sends her a text, and wanders into the bedroom to get out of his dressing gown. 

At nine thirty-three, he finds the note.

John: II

Lestrade’s team arrives first, Mycroft not far behind.

There’s no sign of forced entry. No evidence of foul play.

Mary is gone, deliberately, of her own accord.

She has unfinished business. Business that could not wait. That could not wait even five weeks.

Mycroft stares long at the note, longer still at John.

John does not ask for Sherlock, does not mention his name.

John: III

The flat is too quiet.

Mary’s due date comes and goes. There is no word. No word at all. 

John’s hand shakes as he reaches for his pint glass. He takes a leave of absence from work. 

He starts every day by running. Running with purpose until his heart is racing and his skin is slick with perspiration. Counting his footfalls, letting go of his past in pieces, sweating it off his skin, burning it out of his heart.

It is time for a career change. He needs something that matters. Something to replace the weight of Mary’s body beneath his, the pulsing rhythm of London at Sherlock’s side. He needs something to make his heart race, to make his blood pound, to tempt him with death and oblivion. He needs a tightrope to walk, a precipice to skirt. He needs wind in his face and the pounding of the sea in his ears.

He tries Lestrade first, Mycroft next.

Lestrade likes him too well to give him what he wants. Mycroft listens to him, stands, shakes his hand, seals the deal.

And leads him back to Lestrade. Full circle, ring around the rosie.

All fall down.

Sherlock: I

She is heavy with child the first time he sees her.

She is looking for him, but does not see him. He has killed for her, for them, but Mary Watson has abandoned her post. There is a tired vengeance in her eyes. Something is broken in her, but he cannot pursue her, deduce her intentions. He has another target, different prey, here in this city of strangers, in this foreign place where the east wind blows.

Still, he knows this is no coincidence, and he memorizes her, here, a snapshot in time, but cannot put his mind to this mystery until his other business is finished.

That business is walking briskly away now, heavy backpack over one shoulder, and Sherlock, hair shorn short, shrouded in a formless dusk-grey raincoat, fades into the night, his last vow broken in his heart.

Sherlock: II

She is thin and haggard six weeks later, pushing through the crowded plaza toward him.

He is an old man today, soaking up the late winter sun on a stone bench, newspaper folded on his lap, chilled fingers in worn gloves. Her hair is dark at the roots, pushed behind her ears. She is hatless, gloveless, and her coat is open to the cold. Beneath it, she wears a jumper of a nondescript colour.

He tracks her as she approaches, does not flinch as she drops onto the bench beside him and takes out her mobile. She pretends to study it, flicks her thumb across the screen. Her hand is trembling.

“I have a job for you,” she says, not looking at him. A laugh, bitter and harsh, escapes her. 

“I already have work,” he replies in the accent he has perfected in his three months here.

“I’m supposed to kill you,” she says. “But I’d rather not.”

“Oh.” He wraps his coat more tightly around himself. “Good.”

“I have a package for John,” she whispers. “I won’t be going back.”

“Mary….” He does not turn to face her. He understands what she is saying, and what she is not.

She is standing now.

“I’ll find you,” she says as she leaves him. “I can’t say when.”

Sherlock:III

It’s raining again, and he hides beneath the voluminous raincoat, smoking a cigarette as he leans against the brick wall behind the bus stop. He is waiting for new orders, watching as he always does. It is not the life he’d choose, but it’s a life, and his mind is occupied, and he’s nearly stopped breathing the residue of London and dreaming the shadows of John.

He is distracted, briefly, by the rumble of the bus as it pulls to a stop, and is not at full game when someone stumbles against him. He takes a defensive stance, but a warm bundle is in his arms, a dark bag on his shoulder, and Mary’s voice is in his ear.

“Get her out of here,” she says.

And she is gone.

Sherlock leans heavily against the wall, cigarette burning on the pavement at his feet. He knows what is in his arms, and he is paralyzed, but he has but one option. He disappears into the night, returns to his lair, and unwraps the bundle.

J & S: I

Defusing bombs requires a steady hand, nerves of steel, a certain callousness about the value of one’s own life. The skill is not learned in a fortnight.

But John is a soldier, a physician, a crack shot. He is smart, steady, brave to the point of absurdity.

He has no one to live for, but he still guzzles life, over-indulges.

While he learns the art of connections and wires and explosives and timers, the basics of suicide vests and the schematics of pressure cooker bombs, he is also pegged for a tactical team, and considered as a hostage negotiator.

He pushes away the might-have-beens, visions of rose-petal cheeks, tries not to sink into the holes in his life. 

He wakes in the morning and runs out his fears, then spends eight more hours, ten, working them out of his system. By day’s end he is exhausted, yet nothing but sleep aids can keep the dreams at bay.

J & S: II

He is half asleep on his sofa when his mobile vibrates. He ignores it, and five minutes later it vibrates again. He fumbles for it, stares at it, then tumbles inelegantly off the sofa. He moves to the door and unlocks it, then steps back several paces.

There is more than one man on the stairway – he can hear their footsteps. But only one man pushes open the door, and only one man comes through in a rush of quiet movement and collapses, exhausted, onto the sofa.

Sherlock Holmes is the best thing he has seen in months. But the sight of him is nearly too much for John, and he stares warily at him from his self-imposed distance, until it registers, finally, that Sherlock Holmes is holding a baby.

The look on John’s face as he tries to process what he is seeing is too much for Sherlock.

“Mary tracked me down. She was supposed to kill me. She chose to use me as a delivery service instead. I believe this is yours.”

John is running the numbers.

Sherlock has been gone for eighteen weeks.

Mary was due seven weeks ago.

And the facts.

Mary left to finish the job – to kill Sherlock.

Mary didn’t kill Sherlock. Mary gave Sherlock the baby.

Mary – Mary must not have expected to live.

But thoughts of Mary dissipate like smoke as the baby inhales, preparing to wail. John has dropped the pretense of wariness, has forgotten his fears. He sits heavily on the sofa beside Sherlock.

Sherlock is comforting the child. Her hand holds his little finger, and he is bouncing her, jiggling her, very softly. Impossible sounds are coming from him. _Shhhh, sweetheart. Hey…._

John scoots even closer to Sherlock, leaning in to him as shock and awe and grief and a raw sort of joy wage war in his soul.

“She’s quite a bit of trouble. Sleeps well only if you hold her. Drinks the most boring sort of formula. Goes through a hundred nappies a day. Cries when she’s bored. Seems to need a huge amount of stimulation to keep her quiet.” Sherlock is speaking softly, looking at the small, pinched face instead of at John. 

John’s arm wraps around Sherlock. He strokes the baby’s cheek - _petal soft_ \- with a calloused thumb. She turns her head into her father’s touch and opens blue eyes.

“Hello beautiful,” John whispers. His arm around Sherlock tightens.

“I can’t stay,” says Sherlock. “I’ve caused a good deal of trouble – insisting on bringing her myself.”

“Of course you have,” says John. He strokes the baby’s cheek again, and his hand on Sherlock’s back moves to his shoulder. His fingers dig in.

Sherlock turns his head. He looks vulnerable, and infinitely sad.

John kisses him. Chaste press of lips to the corner of his mouth, a caressing thank you, is not enough. Sherlock shifts to change the angle of their bodies, cradling the child safely against him, as John leans in further and kisses him properly.

It’s a hello and a goodbye.

The best kiss he’s ever shared.

The worst.

“What’s her name?” he asks as Sherlock rolls the child from his arms to John’s, as he leans into John while John arranges her in his left arm, right hand now entwined with Sherlock’s. “What did Mary call her?”

“I have absolutely no idea.”

J & S: III

It is a scene of domestic bliss and it lasts all of a quarter hour.

Sherlock stays, hand still clutched in John’s, as Mycroft comes in and pulls a kitchen chair into the sitting room, and goes through the logistics of legalizing, legitimizing, baby Watson.

He leaves with a backward glance at Sherlock, a five minute warning.

John’s life has been kicked into a pile of loose ends in the middle of the room. He clutches at the thread that is Sherlock and feels it unravel in his heart.

The baby is tucked on the sofa, wailing her complaint, as Sherlock and John embrace by the door. Their bodies are molded together in a final, fierce, hug.

Sherlock leaves and John rests his head against the cold wood of the door until the child’s cries rouse him from his stupor.

He settles down beside her, and takes her up in his arms.

She is his, an impossible gift, from today until forever. He can’t imagine how she’ll fit into his life but she will.

He lays her on his shoulder, turns his face to kiss her head.

She smells of baby, and of Sherlock.

The hint of Claire de la Lune is only in his mind.

_Fin_


End file.
